Thursday, April 4, 2013

Silent Towers of Steel

On Sunday I was up at 4:30am to go on an exploring adventure with some of Urbexia, we were going to discover steel mills. I am not going to disclose their location because one in particular that we saw was almost pristine, so wonderfully preserved in it's decay that it was a complete joy to wander around the slumbering machinery and not be confronted with childish tagging or disrespectful graffiti. So I am just going to present some of the photos, unfortunately leaving out some wonderful momentos, but images that would have disclosed their origin.
It was a drizzling day with the rain relentlessly falling, an almost vertical pouring of small droplets of water, which although not torrential was still enough to drive us inside buildings and only take outside shots where our cameras could be shielded. I managed to get some rain on my lens and some of us suffered from fogging lenses but we still persisted in trying to create art and document this monolithic structure.

This 'steel worker' gave us a shock when we first saw him. We had no idea whether it had been a worker that set him up or a previous explorer but he certainly looked realistic standing and looking over the railing.

We finished our tour of the site feeling grateful that we'd managed to capture so many aspects of this old plant in its original condition, knowing that it wouldn't be too long before the scrappers, taggers and other vandals come in and tear it apart or deface it.

Stopping for a moment of fun at an abandoned gas station. We decided in the few remaining hours of daylight to race and capture another old giant before the night closed in. The next plant is already in the process of being demolished so we were fortunate to catch a last glimpse of its towering form before the wrecking balls smashed it to the ground. Piles of scrap covered the surrounding area along with skips and machinery. This old giant won't be standing much longer...

As daylight dwindled to dusk we wrapped up, tired after so much intensive picture taking and traveling. We drove home in the dark stopping to fuel up with sugary snacks, ice cream and soda but I still wasn't satisfied and simply couldn't work out why. Not until the following morning did I realize that we'd not had our traditional after exploration beer. I'm pretty sure that's a first!